Inaction Quotes - Page 6

• We are not here in this world to drift like seaweed. Whatever intelligence we have, it is our duty to drive to the utmost.

  Blanche Willis Howard

  World, Duty, Seaweed

  Blanche Willis Howard (1900). “The Garden of Eden”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I know in my heart the dream will be realized. I choose to believe. And choosing is a powerful thing. It's available to you at every moment. You can choose understanding over anger, believing over nonbelieving, action over inaction. It gives meaning to every choice we make.

  Yolanda King

  Dream, Powerful, Believe

  59 Copy quote

• The non-action of the wise man is not inaction. It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything. The sage is quiet because he is not moved, not because he wills to be quiet. . . . Joy does all things without concern. For emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness, silence, and non-action are the root of all things.

  Zhuangzi

  Wise, Men, Roots

  19 Copy quote

• Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine - that is, activity - which could solve it, is seen as odious.

  Margaret George

  Archery, Medicine, Boredom

  7 Copy quote

• The honest ratepayer and his healthy family have no doubt often mocked at the dome-like forehead of the philosopher, and laughed over the strange perspective of the landscape that lies beneath him. If they really knew who he was, they would tremble. For Chuang Tsǔ spent his life in preaching the great creed of Inaction, and in pointing out the uselessness of all things.

  Oscar Wilde

  Lying, Perspective, Healthy

  Oscar Wilde (1969). “The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde”, p.222, University of Chicago Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine ― that is, activity ― which could solve it, is seen as odious. Archery? It is too cold, and besides, the butts need re-covering; the rats have been at the straw. Music? To hear it is tedious; to compose it, too taxing. And so on. Of all the afflictions, boredom is ultimately the most unmanning. Eventually, it transforms you into a great nothing who does nothing ― a cousin to sloth and a brother to melancholy.

  Margaret George

  Cousin, Brother, Archery

  4 Copy quote

• As Albert Camus wrote, the doctor’s role is as a witness – to witness authentically the reality of humanity, and to speak out against the horrors of political inaction... The only crime equaling inhumanity is the crime of indifference, silence, and forgetting.

  James Orbinski

  Reality, Doctors, Speaks Out

  9 Copy quote

• Indifference and inaction must always pay a penalty.

  William Feather

  Pay, Indifference, Penalties

  4 Copy quote

• There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important.

  Chuck Hagel

  Thinking, Important, Asking

  Interview with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 26, 2015.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lacan , Derrida and Foucault are the perfect prophets for the weak, anxious academic personality, trapped in verbal formulas and perennially defeated by circumstances. They offer a self-exculpating cosmic explanation for the normal professorial state of resentment, alienation, dithering passivity and inaction.

  Camille Paglia

  Self, Perfect, Personality

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Camille Paglia, "Arion", Third Series, Volume 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• I sense that conservatives have largely already tuned out to the coming elections, after six years of burgeoning federal spending and inaction on key issues, such as immigration. The Republican Party has become the party of the government status quo, and conservatives see no reason to reward it with their votes.

  Bob Barr

  Party, Keys, Government

  4 Copy quote

• I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism- in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can be really idle.

  H. L. Mencken

  Life, Success, Powerful

  7 Copy quote

• Inaction without more is not tantamount to choice.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Choices

  "Richard v. Credit Suisse, 242 N.Y. 346, 351". 1926.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction, no falsifying dream Between my hooked head and hooked feet: Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

  Ted Hughes

  Dream, Sleep, Eye

  Ted Hughes (2014). “A Ted Hughes Bestiary: Selected Poems”, p.25, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• It requires a certain kind of bravery, I suppose, to choose the status quo. There's a certain boldness to inaction.

  Karen Thompson Walker

  Bravery, Kind, Certain

  Karen Thompson Walker (2012). “The Age of Miracles: A Novel”, p.78, Random House

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And then God gave me insight: this was winter. It would end, in time, but not by my own doing. My responsibility was simply to know the season, and match my actions and inactions to it. It was to learn the slow hard discipline of waiting. It was my season to believe in spite of-to believe in the absence of evidence or emotion, when there's nothing, no bud, no color, no light, no birdsong, to validate belief. It was my time to walk without sight.

  Mark Buchanan

  Believe, Responsibility, Winter

  13 Copy quote

• The actions and inactions of hundreds of millions of people and nearly 200 states, will affect what kind of world emerges in the time ahead.

  Herbert Schiller

  People, World, Action

  "Living In The Number One Country". Book by Herbert Schiller, 2000.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man works for an object. Remove that object and you reduce him into inaction.

  Jose Rizal

  Men, Remove, Objects

  "Indolence of the Filipino". La Solidaridad, 1890.

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• Slobodan Miloševi?, more than anyone else, caused a division within the Left and Centre Left, dividing the pacifists, anti-imperialists and anti-Americans from the anti-fascists and the internationalists. He reminded too many of us that inaction can be as toxic and murderous as action. He prepared us - for weal or woe - for the new world.

  Slobodan Milosević

  World, Woe, Toxic

  13 Copy quote

• No, one couldn't make a revolution, one couldn't even start a riot, with sheep that asked only for better browsing.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Sheep, Revolution, Status Quo

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1938). “Works”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• But my belief is growing that our political and social evils are remediable, if only all of us who want a change for the better just get up and work for it, all the time, with as much knowledge and intelligence as we can muster for it. Half the wrongs of human life exist because of the inertia of people who simply will not use their energies in fighting for what they believe in. And finally the wrongs roll up into world catastrophes and millions of deaths and a terrible set-back for all mankind.

  Katherine Anne Porter

  Believe, Fighting, People

  Katherine Anne Porter, Isabel Bayley (1994). “Letters of Katherine Anne Porter”, p.291, Atlantic Monthly Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing wilts faster than a laurel rested upon.

  Mary Kay Ash

  Laurels, Faster

  Mary Kay Ash (1995). “Mary Kay, You Can Have it All: Lifetime Wisdom from America's Foremost Woman Entrepreneur”, Prima Lifestyles

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Surrender is not a weakness, or state of inaction, but rather a powerful state of pure energy; the energy of becoming your true purpose.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Powerful, Weakness, Energy

  4 Copy quote

• Heaven forbid we've got a problem where we could have prevented a terrorist attack or apprehended someone who is engaged in dangerous activity, but we didn't do so simply because of inaction in the Senate.

  Barack Obama

  Heaven, Problem, Dangerous

  "With A Midnight Deadline, The Senate Meets To Resolve Patriot Act Issues". "All Things Considered" with Karen Grigsby Bates, www.npr.org. May 31, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle.... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them-with God's help. So every day, light your small candle.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Children, Struggle, Light

  73 Copy quote